Pressure Fluctuation Analysis in Gas-Solid Fluidized Beds Using CFD Simulations

Abstract

Reliable computational methods provide valuable insight into gas-solid flow processes and can be used as a design tool. Of particular interest is the hydrodynamics of a binary mixture of sand-biomass in a fluidized bed. Our study interprets the hydrodynamic states of a fluidized bed by analyzing the local pressure fluctuations of beds of sand and a mixture of cotton stalks and sand over long time periods. Standard deviation of pressure drop will determine different fluidization regimes at inlet gas velocities ranging from 2 to 9 times the minimum fluidization velocity. Bode plots will present the pressure spectra and reveal characteristic frequencies that describe the bed hydrodynamics for different fluidization regimes. This works contribution will present CFD as a useful tool to perform pressure fluctuation analysis, the study of pressure fluctuations in the turbulent regime and the analysis of a binary mixture using CFD.